This invention relates to a method and an apparatus for supplying a belt-shaped member to a winding drum. For example, a ply cord such as tire carcass, belt or the like which is paid out of a winding roll and cut into a predetermined length, while an extending direction of cords constituting the belt shaped member is maintained exactly in coincident with a predetermined direction.
In a hitherto widely used prior method of winding a rubber coated ply cord of a tire carcass around a winding drum, after manually cutting off the rubber coated ply cord along cords included therein into a predetermined length, the obtained belt-shaped ply cord thus obtained is wound around the winding drum. In another used method, after winding a rubber coated ply cord around a winding drum, the wound ply cord is cut off along cords thereof. In recent years, particularly, various attempts have been made to automatize the above cutting and winding operations.
On the other hand, it is usual that cords constituting rubber coated ply cords extend in directions somewhat different from predetermined directions. It is therefore difficult to obtain an exact rectangular or parallelogrammic belt-shaped member by cutting off the ply cords without regard to manual or mechanical operation so long as the cutting is along the cords. The belt-shaped members obtained are trapezoid in most cases. Accordingly, when such an inaccurately formed member is wound around a winding drum over its circumference, overlapped front and rear ends of the member are not parallel to each other in a width direction of the material. Therefore, the front end overlaps the rear end at one edge but frequently does not overlap at the other edge of the member. Even if they completely overlap, the overlapped amount changes in the width direction.
In the prior art, therefore, a manual correcting operation for the overlapped portion is invariably required even if the cutting and winding operation are automated. If the overlapped amount is increased in order to avoid such a manual correcting operation, the increased overlapped amount lowers the yield rate of ply cords and the uniformity of a tire.